It’s not your imagination: It really is a different kind of tax season. It’s so different that the National Taxpayers Union Foundation (NTUF), a nonpartisan research and educational organization, is calling on Congress to extend the filing season.
by Kelly Phillips Erb – Senior Contributor, Taxes – Forbes
Why the pitch? The NTUF argues that the timing of the shutdown—the longest ever in U.S. history—created a perfect storm for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as it was preparing for a busy filing season. Tax season opened on time on January 28, 2019, with IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig assuring taxpayers, “The IRS will be doing everything it can to have a smooth filing season.”
The shutdown created a backlog of correspondence and appointments (more on that here) that needed to be tackled during tax season. In her annual report to Congress, Nina Olson, the National Taxpayer Advocate (NTA), advised that “[t]he five weeks could not have come at a worse time for the IRS.” The shutdown hit at the same time as taxpayers were grappling with a new tax law and a “completely restructured” tax form. As a result, the IRS kicked off the current filing season “inundated with correspondence, phone calls, and…
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